Asklemmy

I'm assuming you're vegan?

If what you're looking for is a quick vegan dish, here's something I learnt in Japan - baked avocado.

Open a ripe avocado lengthwise and remove the seed. Take a sharp knife and cut a grid-like pattern into the avocado, going as deep as possible (careful not to puncture the skin!).

Now, pour some soy sauce of your liking (ideally not a thickened one, and with a moderate saltiness level) into the cavity. You don't want to fill it completely, that would be overpowering. Maybe about 1/3 of the depth, just enough to allow it to seep into every crevice when baking.

For the baking process itself, crumble up some tinfoil to make a stand for the avocado halves, you want them to remain as level as possible. Bake them on 350F / 175C for about 20-25 min, you want them to be soft but not burned.

Once done, decorate with sesame seeds and either spoon them out directly (that's the Japanese way) or spread on a toasted sourdough bread, sprinkle some smoked paprika and chopped chives & coriander over it, and enjoy.

Vegetarian option: Crack an egg into the cavity (on top of the soy sauce) 5 min into the bake. You want about 15 min left for solid eggwhites with a still semi-runny yolk. Mix it up and spread on bread.

Omnivore option: Fry some bacon beyond crispy, crumble it up completely, and drizzle the bacon bits on top.

someone mentioned rice and beans but im going to specifically say rice and lentils. dry lentils will cook up with rice in a rice cooker along with the rice with no extra steps. just rinse the rice and dry lentils (or don't but uh, modern food can have some nasty chemicals) put in the cooker with the usual two cups of water for each cup of solids. Add anything handy you can for flavor be it seasoning or veg or sauces or whatever. Literally cannot think of a simpler meal to make and its ingredients don't need canning or refrigeration necessarily. Just need the rice cooker for convenience.

Rice and beans in the instant pot with a pinch of Goya Adobo, maybe a bit of sour cream when it's done. Delish, cheap, easy, low cleanup, and good for ya.

Banana

Poke bowls: rice seasoned with rice vinegar and soja sauce, cucumber, a fruit, chicken or smoked salmon cut in stripes, season with soja sauce or mayonnaise. One can get fancy with avocado, exotic fruits, tuna, whatever. Everything goes.

Cutting half a cucumber and a fruit is easy, slicing a package of salmon too, and one can consume chicken or meat leftovers. One can do all that meanwhile the white rice boils. Bonus points if you have a rice cooker.

I make one massive salad with romaine, cucumber, and red pepper and keep it in a Tupperware, then dole it out one bowl at a time every day for a week and add a hard boiled egg, black olives, dressing, and chickpeas.

Blackened shrimp or chicken burritos. Yes, shrimp. It's $16 for 2lbs. at Aldi, and it's quality meat. My wife and I get 4-8 meals for that, the rest amounts to about $2, if that.

• Sear the tortillas (corn or flour, you do you) in butter or margarine for a few, throw it on the plate.

• Fry up a few shrimp in a cast iron pan, drench in black spice to taste. (Black spice: Cayenne, chili powder, paprika, black pepper, salt, cumin, powdered garlic, onion powder, mix to taste and add whatever else you like. White pepper is the shit if you can afford it! Use the cheapest bulk crap you can buy at the ghetto grocery, nothing fancy or it will be too spicy, too many strong favors.)

• Dice onions and chop some tomatoes, cheap lettuce if you like.

• Throw your choice of shredded cheese on top of the cooked meat, pile on the rest of the ingredients.

• Bring your own salsa, but I'd recommend something with a bit of acid like a tomato based sauce. Want it hotter? Much on some dehydrated chile árbol peppers (between bites!) from the Mexican store. Stupid cheap for a year's worth of heat.

I've been making overnight oats with chia seeds. Oats, oat milk, chia seeds, a little sugar. Stick it in the fridge for 2-12 hours. Chop up some bananas, blueberries, strawberries, really whatever fruit you want. Add sunflower seeds or some ground up pistachios and a bit of Greek yogurt. It's so freaking good, and so fast, and I can grab it whenever and eat while I study

Brussel sprouts, cut in half. Olive oil/butter, salt pepper garlic. Roast or fry. The best part is how they long they last in the fridge. Both cooked and uncooked.

Bell peppers & beef is my current favorite. It's as simple as browning some beef, putting rice in the ricecooker, and making a simple sauce to cook the peppers in.

If you boil rice, just check some veg on top so it steams, then add seasoning when it's done. Bish bash bosh.

Oatmeal, add just water or use milk and add fruits.

Pizza.

That's not healt-

If I decide I want to live to be old enough to get dementia and have to wear a diaper, I'll let you know.

Beans on toast.

Shakshouka! So easy, so tasty, so cheap, and can switch out basically any ingredient for whatever you have lying around! Worth looking up if you don't know it :)

Beans and rice!

Tomato pasta.

Boil a pot of water, and add your pasta. In a separate pan/pot, throw some cherry tomatoes in with some olive oil and cook on a medium/high temp. The skin will char, and it breaks down the juice will come out. Add some.garlic (sliced, crushed, whatever suits), and after 30 seconds throw a splash of red wine in with a stock cube and let it reduce to a jammy consistency. As things get dry, add some of the pasta water to keep things jammy. Once the pasta is a minute from being done, throw it in with the sauce and cook until everything is done. Add some basil at this point if you want, and maybe some chilli. Lunch is done in 10 mins.

Another fave is Tomato and Pepper Soup. Cut some big tomatoes, an onion, and a pepper (equal numbers of these), along with some garlic cloves in their skins, and put in a ceramic container to go into the oven for 30-45 mins. Once done, blitz in/with a blender until smooth (make sure the garlic is out of the skins first), add some stock, and finish with some cream, and you're done. It's much slower, but takes maybe 5 mins of effort.

Marry me chickpeas! https://www.noracooks.com/marry-me-chickpeas/

Rice Burritos

• Set up pot for loose Rice
• Put the vegetables in the same pot and a bit extra water
• Add Curry Paste
• Cook like it says on the Rice
• Maybe add Coconut milk
• Put in Tortilla, maybe add some salad

3 minutes of vegetable peeling while the water starts to boil, 10 minutes of unsupervised boiling, maybe 5 minutes stirring. You only need to clean 1 pot, and it's cheap.

idk if this counts as cooking but arugla, sea salt, and half a lemon topped with real balsamic vinegar and hazelnuts if I got em and maybe a slice of parm. The key is real balsamic which can be hard to find in the states - it should have only 1 ingredient; grape must. Shit is delicious. I could eat it every day.

Cacio e Pepe doesn’t take much ingredient wise or timewise. Another fairly simple pasta dish I’ve been making a lot is kenjis San Francisco Vietnamese noodles. It’s pretty similar, just with a soy fish sauce mixture that’s added in

Pan-fried broccoli and almonds with a little bit of oil.

Frozen veggie with curry sauce.

Takes les 5-10 minutes to prepare, Is tasty, adding curry is magic bullet to improve taste It's veggie, so pretty healthy

Beans, rice, and greens, using canned beans, is fast and feels so healthy to eat.

Grits with tuna was my mom's go-to and I love that too.

Expensive and too much packaging but the bagged salad kits, topped with a can of tuna, leftover chicken, garbanzo beans or a fried or boiled egg is also an occasional quick meal for us.

Soondubu, doenjang jigae (I add gochujang for some spice). Both Korean soups.

If I have to cook, ground beef burritos. I could make that in my sleep. Get some rice going in the rice cooker. Saute diced onions, add minced garlic when those are translucent and smell good, add the beef when the garlic smells good, add spices once the beef is mostly browned. I add lemon juice at the end to deglaze. Toss on a tortilla with some sour cream, a huge handful of chopped cilantro (no soapy taste here, just lemony freshness), the rice, and lots of home-canned salsa.

But really, if I want something quick, I'm not cooking. I love eating some crusty bread with hummus. I buy big bags ciabatta buns and keep them in the freezer. Just a few minutes in my air fryer and they come out basically freshly baked.

Garden peas / Petit pois. Stick em in a pot, add some vegetable stock, dump a can of chopped tomatoes in there, boil for 30 mins. Add maybe some rice and lentils.

I could eat that all day.

Pulao, I'm assuming Punjab-style: Brown half a chopped onion in oil in the pressure cooker, toss in some spices from the dabba to let them get fragrant, then add basmati rice and chopped veggies. Put the cover on, get it up to pressure for a couple of minutes, then natural release. Top with a couple spoonfuls of curd (yogurt), and it's delicious.

I haven't done it, bit I believe that with a pressure cooker you don't need to soak the chickpeas.

Pho Ga (using chicken thighs), with various toppings and vermicelli rice noodles. Takes about 45 all in, if you're efficient, whilst being delicious and healthy.

I have a 5 liter pot. I'll make a big batch of chili/stew/soup and freeze it in pint size containers. Right now I have portions of lentil soup and chili sitting in the freezer. It takes me five minutes to microwave.